Albert’s article Volcanoes and rain explores the possible links between volcanic eruptions and subsequent periods of wet weather. But there is another side to this story: rain can, in turn, have ...

Who doesn’t love a good mystery? The allure of the unknown captivates all, no matter one’s social, political, religious, or scientific standing. From dark matter to what could lie beyond death to the ...

Along the western edge of South America, the Andes Mountains encompass one of the largest concentrations of volcanoes on Earth. Many of these volcanoes are active, and in the historical record of just ...

Many volcanoes have captured the attention of fanatics such as us, we often pick favorites depending on our internal biases. After all volcanoes provide varieties of intrigue to curious minds, from ...

A fun question: which are the southernmost, most equatorial and northernmost volcanoes in the world? We need to add two provisos here, otherwise this question is impossible to answer: the volcano ...

It came as a shock – quite literally. It shouldn’t have, because a recent paper had predicted that the area was preparing for a large earthquake. On 29 July, at 23:25 UTC, the 5 th largest earthquake ...

The highest volcano in the world is Cerro Ojos del Salado. It is a stratovolcano in South America’s Central Volcanic Zone, reaching an impressive 6893 meters above sea level (or at least above what ...

The centre of South Africa is an amazing place. The long drive from Cape Town in-land is exciting for the first two hours, while the road climbs up through the mountains, past vineyards and valleys ...

These are not eruptions like we have seen in modern times. The two largest eruptions of the past 2000 years are Tambora in 1815, and Taupo around 200 AD. They ejected around 150 km 3, decent VEI-7’s ...

The double-booked land is also known as the Afar Triangle, a low-lying region wedged into the Ethiopian Plateau. The region is not for the intrepid. The name is synonymous with remoteness. It is also ...

A trivia question: can you name the largest country without an active volcano? Here ‘active’ includes ‘dormant’: it is about volcanoes that have access to live magma and could in principle erupt, even ...

Here is the famous Steppe, the dry grass-land, the never-ending plain stretching across Eurasia from China to Hungary. Rainfall is too limited for trees to grow. The climate is harsh, with hot summers ...